Masochists Read The Comments And Laugh

Over the years, I’ve grown a thick skin when reading through articles about many progressive topics, mainly undocumented issues. I’ve come to understand that there are many folks out there whose hatred for others is so deeply-rooted, they’ve taken to trolling the comments sections of these articles and blog posts to release all those pent-up racist politically-incorrect feelings, opinions, and thoughts they have about whatever.

In the past, many websites offered everyone an opportunity to chime into the conversation by guaranteeing anonymity. Folks were able to create anonymous logins and writer whatever bullshit comments they wanted and leave it to the discretion of the site to filter and moderate the mess. No insult was too low, no misspelling and grammar error too embarrassing, no comment too crazy and over-the-top. But as time passed, different apps began to be developed that linked different news sites and blogs to social media platforms. Facebook began to switch up everyone’s privacy settings without telling anyone. Anonymity was no longer guaranteed. And it’s quite apparent that many of these mean-spirited folks didn’t get the memo to check their Facebook permissions and privacy settings (or maybe they did and just don’t care to hide who they are any longer).

For the longest time, I thought that internet anonymity was an incentive for people to express their true thoughts and feelings. But I was very wrong.

A couple of days ago, I read through an article published by KVOA about a Mexican military helicopter crossing into Arizona during a drug interdiction operation and accidentally shooting at Border Patrol agents (for more info, check out the article: “Mexican Military Chopper Crosses The Border, Shoots at Agents“).

Though the article was terribly written, I was able to extract the following bits of information:

1. The Mexican military was in the middle of some drug battle in the area, presumably against narcos.
2. The helicopter only flew 100 yards into Arizona before turning back. In a helicopter, that’s like… 2 seconds of flying.
3. The Mexican military fired only TWO shots, which could’ve been warning shots. They didn’t use the heavy chopper-installed machine guns or anything crazier than that.
4. Nobody was hurt, no property was damaged.
5. Mexican authorities have already apologized and are looking into the incident.

But for many folks who left comments on that particular article, they either didn’t get far enough into the article before their racism started to act up and took over their fingers and keyboards, or they just used this incident to jump up onto their racist soapbox to tell all their Facebook friends (and anyone who wanders onto this particular article) about how much they hate Mexico and Mexicans.

Whatever the case is, their comments are not anonymous. You can click onto people’s names and go directly to their Facebook pages. You can see who they are, what they look like, what their families look like, what their lives are like.

The creepiest part is just how many “likes” some of these comments have received. These people have a hate community that supports these trains of thoughtlessness.

I realize that this isn’t exactly a representation of what the average American feels (though I didn’t expect any less from folks in Arizona). But… in the case that it is… holy shit. These folks are the cancer that is infecting our political arenas with the sort of ideology that hurts so many of our community members. They vote. They are the beneficiaries of our experiences as undocumented people, whether our experiences are positive or negative.

As a masochist, I’ve learn to read through comments sections of articles and laugh at these miserable people.

Below is a screencapture of some of the comments from this article, with names and photos uncensored. That’s how these folks wanted their comments to appear. So here it is, as a keepsake of American society in 2014.